NBC: Did al-Qaida trainee warn FBI before 9/11?

[oldhat]

Did al-Qaida trainee warn FBI before 9/11?
Says he told agents of terrorist plan to hijack passenger planes
By Lisa Myers, Jim Popkin and the NBC Investigative Unit
NBC News
Updated: 6:44 p.m. ET June 03, 2004

LONDON - More than a year before 9/11, a Pakistani-British man told the FBI an incredible tale: that he had been trained by bin Laden’s followers to hijack airplanes and was now in America to carry out an attack.  The FBI questioned him for weeks, but then let him go home, and never followed up.  Now, the former al-Qaida insider is talking.

In March, 2000, Niaz Khan said he was down and out, waiting tables in a curry house north of London, overwhelmed by gambling debts and increasingly drawn to the message of a radical local imam.  The imam extolled Osama bin Laden and the rewards of dying for jihad.

Then, one night, outside a casino in Manchester, England, Khan said two mysterious men approached him. “First they say, ‘We can help you,’" recalls Khan. "I say, ‘How can you help me?’  Say, ‘OK, come sit in car.’  Said ‘Do you heard Osama name’?”

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5131524/

[dArKeR]

1. I thought this link was phoney. Until I saw it myself on MSGOP homepage!

http://darkerxdarker.tripod.com/

[Just Me]

2. Good grief!!! The guy passed two polygraphs and they still,...

,...blew him off? Why.

Interesting story, "oldhat". :bounce:

[dusty64]

17. Why? Hmm, I

can think of a few reasons. He's talking ..... he'd better be careful.

[mhr]

3. More Amunition For The Clinton Haters - Helps Bush - Hurts The Dems!

eom

[struggle4progress]

5. I disagree.

The FBI should have followed up. But the agency certainly still had some of the information, and it should have be combined with the flight school info when that become available: when * was President.

[librechik]

6. yup--duck everybody!

they have found a pointy stick that they can twist to point at the Clenis, and no amount of logic will get them to stop.

[Nlighten1]

4. “I’ve been to Pakistan,"

All roads lead back to Pakistan don't they?

[FreakinDJ]

7. Ahh "Forget about it"

snip

NBC News has learned that Khan passed not one but two FBI polygraphs. A former FBI official says Newark agents believed Khan and tried to aggressively follow every lead in the case, but word came from headquarters saying, “return him to London and forget about it” -- which, critics say, is exactly what the FBI did.

end snip

and they wonder why we say BUSH KNEW

[aquart]

12. When did that happen?

[FreakinDJ]

15. April 2001 ..4 1/2 months BEFORE 911

[dArKeR]

8. I guessed 2.5 years ago. Cheney knew that a 'hijacking' was on and allowed

it. Remember Bush's ratings had been steadily dropping. So Cheney, Rumsfeld and Bush SR. knew or planned the hijackings. Which would be resolved in some type of stand-off with deaths. But the pilots had a secret plan that not even their cells knew of. To crash the planes into American buildings.

[never cry wolf]

9. WAIT A MINUTE......DOTS CONNECTING....HAPPENED IN 2000

Hold on everyone, first READ the article! Per the article this guy reported this to the FBI in 2000, under the clenis watch, and was sloughed off.

Also here in LBN is a story about a dentist taking sick (from poisoning) trying to publish a book about when he met 3 hijackers a year before 9-11 and reported them to the FBI in 2000, under the clenis watch, and was sloughed off.

here's the thread: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x601175

and the source article:
http://www.ktbs.com/news-detail.html?cityid=1&hid=23956

OK, tinfoil hat time, could this be the start of a concerted effort of new RW talking points blaming the Big Dawg/Gore admin? Wait and see if more of these type of stories come out and/or if these get big play in the hate radio circuit.

[Just Me]

10. Bush was warned that "terrorism" would be his #1 issue.

That is on the record.

He blew it off, threw away all the intelligence gathered under Clinton, and spent 9 months wasting time.

That is on the record.

The facts are,...Bush was, at best, a miserable failure,....at worst, LIHOP or MIHOP,...because his administration KNEW the danger was imminent and either did nothing or ?????

<on edit - chill out,...the facts are our greatest weapon>

[never cry wolf]

11. I agree with you

BUT, these are two stories coming out almost simultaneously, about how the FBI, under Clinton, essentially ignored these warnings. I am not saying the stories are true, or that some assistant deputy local FBI director was responsible. Just that it seems odd that these stories are now out, at the same time, on essentially the same subject of FBI ignoring warnings of 9-11.

The stories themselves are innocuous politically, but just wait and see if they aren't picked up by the RW media as a way to blame the clenis.

[Imperialism Inc.]

13. Clearly they will spin it any way they can, but I don't think people

will buy it. Bush still had information given to him and there really isn't any way to blame that on Clinton. Plus Clinton isn't running for anything. The only people that hate Clinton enough to shift all the blame to Clinton are already going to vote for Bush. So the very worse case would be a few swing voters blaming both of them equally.

[Bridget Burke]

19. This was the FBI under Louis Freeh

How high did the warning go? Up to the director? Did he pass it on to the White House?

Freeh was a Republican who turned against Clinton & spent too many agency resources investigating his own President.

[Eurobabe]

20. ironic how these "confessions" get airtime

now, with two damning reports due out over the next month.

Politicizing much? I think so.

[leesa]

14. Why don't we just cut the crap. There has probably never been an

Al Qaeda organization. Simply a ficticious boogieman

[maddezmom]

16. reuters picks up story..Link

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A year and a half before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, a British Muslim told the FBI (news - web sites) that he was trained to be a hijacker for Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) and was in the United States to carry out attacks, NBC News and The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.


~snip~

A congressional report on the Sept. 11 attacks confirmed that in April 2000 an unnamed "walk-in" source told FBI agents in Newark, New Jersey, that he "was to meet five or six persons," some of them pilots, who would take over a plane and fly to Afghanistan (news - web sites), or blow up the plane, NBC said.

~snip~

NBC quoted a former FBI official as saying that the Newark agents believed Khan but were ordered by headquarters to "return him to London and forget about it." But the FBI insists it investigated Khan's allegations thoroughly, could not confirm them, and had no grounds to hold him, NBC said.


An FBI spokeswoman declined to comment on the reports.


http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&ncid=578&e=5&u=/nm/20040604/ts_nm/security_qaeda_training_dc

[Tempest]

18. Bush Blew Off Hart & Rudman on Anti-Terrorism Report

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x601838

[leesa]

21. Well, the Prez was warned, why not them.